iPhone 4 will not charge or turn on - Water damage

Well my iPhone has had a rough couple of weeks and now I need some help. iPhone 4 - AT&T

About 2 weeks ago I cracked my screen. It still worked fine, I cleared out the loose broken glass and told myself I would just deal with it. Well a few days ago my phone had a few drops of water land on it and I think I think a little of the water went into the hole in my screen (towards the top of the screen). My phone went completely dead soon after.

I dried it off as good as I could and stuck in a bowl of uncooked rice. About 4 hours later it came back to life and worked normal the rest of the day. I plugged it in for the night, but when I woke up the next morning it didn't charge at all. No matter what I did it wouldn't charge (hooked it up to 2 different computers, the car charger and the wall charger). Once the battery completely ran out it won't do anything, even when it is plugged in.

I was able to purchase a new battery for about $6 so I did and popped that in. Same issue. I was able to use my phone for a bit since the battery came charged at about 5%, but once it died it was done for good again.

Anyone have any suggestions on what I can try or if there are any specific parts I can try and replace next? Thanks a bunch for your help!

Are you sure it was water damaged?
There are 4 sensors on your phone - 2 that you can't get to while opening, and the other 2 that you can see. The first one is in the small round hole on top left of the phone (the earpiece hole), and the other one is in the bottom middle that separates the connector. If you shine a light and look at either of these, the sensor will be pink if water has touched this area.
Today, if you have a water damaged iPhone (pink sensors!), Apple will allow you to replace it for a refurbished phone for a lower cost. It's $199 for a refurbished phone and the warranty is only 90 days, but this is a huge difference between the full price of $599 or $699 contract free phone that we had to pay to replace the water damaged phone. Also, don't forget, if you've bought your phone from Best Buy or used a credit card that offers protection, you may be able to get some of your money back or get the phone replaced for free. Don't miss out on these options since you will have to pay to replace the water damaged phone.

Thanks for the replies. I don't see any pink on the sensors, so maybe it isn't necessarily water damaged.

In any case, the only purpose it serves right now is as a paper weight since it still won't turn on. Anyone have any suggested parts to try changing or other methods to get this thing to take a charge?

I have tried having it plugged in first and then turning on the computer.

You should try to replace the Charging Port Connector. I know they sell them on directfix.com for about $10. You could look around other places but be careful not to buy a part that has bad quality. I bought a screen from the directfix site and from everything I can tell, its an OEM part and has been working fine.

Did a quick forum search and google search on how to replace this and didn't come up with anything. I've worked on many iPods before, but have not done much with iPhones. Do you have any idea how difficult of a task this repair is?

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